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Letters

Posted by Vote NO on N
a resident of Adobe-Meadow
on Oct 24, 2008 at 3:02 pm

"Rather, this is a choice between much-needed modernization and continuing deterioration."

Wynn,

By voting "yes" to this bond, you are saying you agree to continue to pay twice as much as our neighbors for an inferior library service. Indeed, a "yes" vote on this bond also tells the council that you agree to increase our annual library budget by $1.1million and the corresponding decrease on other services to fund this.

Please provide people with the information to make that choice. If Palo Altans agree that Palo Alto should continue to outspend out neighbors with no appreciable gain the so be it. Don't try to tell them that this is "a choice between "modernization and continuing deterioration". That is just plain wrong.

Posted by but seriously
a resident of College Terrace
on Oct 24, 2008 at 3:11 pm

I no longer buy lattes regularly. Can't afford 'em. Contrary to what many claim, our family will have to choose. Since PiE is the only discretionary donation and the others are mandatory taxes, if Measure N passes we will absolutely have to decrease our PiE donations. Which is a shame because my kids use school a lot more than the branch libraries. With the economy in its current state, a lot of people will

Posted by Parent
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Oct 24, 2008 at 3:42 pm

Save our Libraries - thanks for sealing my vote against measure N. You have absolutely no understanding of PIE. PIE funds classroom personnel, not books. Schools are not allowed to fund supplemental classroom personnel through any other sources, besides PIE funds, which are distributed equally to all schools based on a per student basis. Since its the schools only ability to fund personnel (like classroom aids), they normally spend PIE funds mostly on personnel.

PTA donations and other sources are allowed to buy books, computers, anything else.

So improved libraries have absolutely no bearing on the need for PIE funds, and your ignorance of this fact, and willingness to damage our schools in the process, tells me that you can not be trusted on this issue.

Posted by Silent Majority
a resident of Barron Park
on Oct 24, 2008 at 3:59 pm

You see Yes on N signs a lot; and they have a fancy web site, poltiical consultants, mailing after mailing, a real organized campaign.

You don't see many people opposed. That's because it is no fun to oppose a library project and people aren't going to brag about it. And it no fun telling people you don't really have another $300 to spend. And that insulting line about lattes - do you really want to tell people you've switched to just plain coffee at home? But believe me, in the privacy of the voting booth, you will see it.

We have been a spendthrift city. I've often thought that only a crisis would change things. Now the crisis is here. Our sales tax revenue is going to plummet - car sales are down 30%, retail sales at high end retailers down 20%. Property values are going down. We are going to build a public safety building that will cost $5+ million a year, and more than expected since interest rates have jumped since that estimate. It is crunch time folks.

Hopefully, with a new city manager and a new sense of fiscal reality, we will finally clean up our act and get our city's fiscal house in order. Passing a whopper of a bond - $76 million dollars! - is the last thing we should do. Let's get our act together Palo Alto.

Posted by The News
a resident of Adobe-Meadow
on Oct 24, 2008 at 4:29 pm

We know the stock market is off almost 50% from a year ago. But we still have jobs right? From the Wall Street Journal today:

Layoffs Sweep Silicon Valley

There's a dream at the heart of every tech startup, the corporate saplings that hope to grow into the next Microsoft of Google. But the dream has turned nightmarish of late: Funding is harder to come by, layoffs are spreading, and in general these companies are bracing for a prolonged dry spell.

The ranks of startups shedding staff is growing by the day. Oddly-named companies like Wikia, Imeem, and Mahalo have all cut jobs this week. Mahalo's CEO, Jason Calacanis, in an email published by TechCrunch, wrote that "while I anticipated and prepared for the 'internet winter' we're now facing…I failed to realize how bad the situation would get. It's much worse than I thought it would be, and ignoring market conditions today would only mean deeper cuts down the road."

And Yahoo. And EBay. Those are your neighbors. A latte a week huh? Not a lot of lattes for those folks. Vote No on N.

Posted by Resident
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Oct 24, 2008 at 5:51 pm

We know that the Yes on N people have money to spend. They can afford multiple lattes a week, so much so that they won't miss one. They can afford lots of fancy orange signs around town. They can even afford to put a full page add in today's Weekly just to show how much money they have to spend.

For those of us who don't have much money to spend, if N passes, we will have to pay out more money than many of us can afford. We will have no choice in the matter. We will consequently have to cut out other things elsewhere. It may be soccer or ballet lessons, or it may be PIE.

I don't think the wealthy Palo Altans get it. It is going to cost us too much. We don't want our property tax bill to go up. We don't want to appear to hate libraries, we certainly don't. But, we can't afford an increase in tax which is what this bond will do. There may not be many foreclosures in Palo Alto yet, but wait and see. People are losing jobs, houses have cost us a lot.

We can't afford the much more than $139 than most families will have to pay.

Posted by unbelievable
a resident of Community Center
on Oct 25, 2008 at 11:00 am

Leslyn Leong,

"I am usually part of the "silent majority" on campaign measures; however, the importance of Measure N for our libraries is too great to not speak out."

Yeah, right! Let's take a look at the list of members of betterlibrariesforpaloalto! Oh, look, there's a "Leslyn Leong" listed. So much for your claim to be part of a "silent majority" - how disingenuous.
You people really will stop at nothing to get this bond through.

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